This Pune firm provided tech support in the Thailand cave rescue operations

While the FIFA World Cup 2018 was in full swing, there was a junior football team miles away from Russia that had the world’s attention for a rather tragic reason. On June 23, 12 children between the ages of 11 and 16, along with their 25-year-old football coach, wandered into the Tham Luang cave in the mountainous region of Northern Thailand after practice. However, the excursion took a turn for the worse when heavy rains caused the cave to flood, thus trapping the team and their instructor inside.

But in what was a truly heartwarming tale, the children and their coach have made it out safely after more than three weeks of rigorous operations that were a part of what is now famously known as the Thailand cave rescue. Though you may have heard the good news, did you know that an Indian company played a part in the rescue? A Pune based firm called the Kirloskar Brothers’ Limited (KBL) provided technical support to the operations.

It was the Indian Embassy that had first informed the Thai authorities about KBL’s expertise in ‘dewatering.’ The company immediately sent teams from its offices in India, Thailand and the United Kingdom to the site of the rescue. It is also reported that KBL’s experts were on the site at Tham Luang as early as July 5. According to the company, they offered all the “technical know-how and advice on dewatering and the pumps involved in the rescue operation.”

Water is pumped out of the caves in order to ensure a passage for rescue operations

The rescue team also used four specialized high-capacity auto prime dewatering pumps, which were specifically airlifted from their Kirloskarvadi plant in Maharashtra to Thailand. The rescue operations, which began on June 24, finally got over on Tuesday, July 10, when the remaining five members of the football team and the coach were rescued from the flooded cave. They had spent a total of 18 days trapped inside it.

According to reports, doctors who treated the boys and the coach involved in the Thailand cave rescue said that everyone had lost an average of 2 kg but were in good health otherwise.